Aaaah!

I'm completely overwhelmed and stressed right now.
Two shows, one week.
Yay.
In other news, I'm dumb.
These make me happy though:

Why I Teach for America

Stewart is a 6-year-old first grader who is in Special Education because he is emotionally disturbed. To say his story is disheartening is an understatement. At the age of 3, his mother threw him down a flight of concrete stairs and dragged him back up by his feet. At 4, he witnessed his younger brother being beaten to death with a bat by his father. He's lived in three homes within the past year, and his other siblings are in foster care. Currently, he resides with his stern grandparents, the victim of a life of abuse.

I do not teach Special Education. I am the Reading Specialist, so I strictly work with students who are behind in reading. Stewart entered first grade as a non-reader, mainly because he had little knowledge of phonics. Every morning, I pick Stewart up to work with him one-on-one for thirty minutes. And on more than one occasion, he has been my reason for not missing a single day of school.

I guess you could say we have grown quite fond of each other. Even on his worst days, the days when tears seem so easy to come by for him, he runs up to me with a smile. "Ms. Block," he says after every day's lesson, "do I get to see you again tomorrow?" I tell him, "Yes, because you're going to be such a great reader by the end of the year!" And I mean it. He is going to enter the 2nd grade on level in reading (or even ahead) if it is the last thing I do.

The first few weeks of school were rough. We focused on phonics, specifically short vowels. For every book, he would have to segment the phonemes (meaning give the sound for each word), then try to blend the sounds together. It took almost the entire half hour we had to get through a book. The last couple of weeks, I knew his reading was improving. We would have enough time to read a book and follow up with worksheets.

But last week, a miracle happened.

Stewart read whole words correctly without stopping.

I could not contain my excitement. After every sentence he giggled and high-fived me. Both of us could not stop smiling when our lesson was over. Stewart is now a beginning reader!!!

Not every day is as fulfilling as the first day Stewart read whole words. Some days are not even close. But in that moment, I realized that I have a place among all of this. Stewart keeps me coming to school, even after the worst days. However, that is not all.

Stewart, and all of my other students, are why I Teach for America.

Coffeeshop Dreaming...

So lately I've been thinking about the coffee shop I'd like to own/operate/be involved in someday.
I guess there's just so much potential in this neighborhood.
Also, no coffee shops anywhere walkable that are open past 7pm (boo!).
What kind of coffee shop, you ask? Oh ho ho, let me tell you.
I think exposed brick and stainless steel would be major elements visually.
A plethora of chair rail height power outlets, and some recessed floor plugs as well near the couches. Yeah. Couches.
There has to be a performance space, perhaps upstairs. Everything has an upstairs in this town.
And all the barristi would wear shirts from Threadless. In fact, there would be a kiosk and/or a selection of TL shirts on sale.
However, I lack a couple of critical elements to get this off the ground in any realisti. c sense: 1. Money. 2. Any idea how a business actually works.
So for now, just an collection of ideas.

In other news, I'm employed. For a couple of gigs anyways.
What sucks is I'm not sure exactly what I'm doing for either.
Which makes me fear taking on any other commitments because I don't know how much time these will eat up.

Today it is gray and rainy and cold.
r/

Commenting

I just enabled comments for non-registered users.
Hopefully there won't be a spampocolypse.
Instead we'll feel like more people read our blog.

Reading is Power

"Why is this class important?"

This was the prompt that my fifth grade students on a 2nd-3rd grade reading level had to respond to first thing on Friday. It sounds like a fluffy question if you don't know them. I asked it because I know how much they want to find meaning in everything they do--particularly when it comes to school.

After two minutes for response time, I asked them to share out. "This class is important because reading will get me into any college I want to go to," said one student. "This class will help me read the menu when I get to start dating," said another. One of my students, Sharita (whose name has been changed here for privacy) jumps from homeless shelter to homeless shelter, but never complains. "This class will help me live anywhere I want to live," she said. "It will help me be anything I want to be."

"Absolutely," I said. "All of these are great answers. You know another reason this class is important? Your answers touched on it...This class is important because reading is POWER."

I went on to explain how once you can read, there is no stopping you. You can get into any college, be confident on dates (haha), move to a better neighborhood or stick around to change your neighborhood for the best. We went on to read about Mary McLeod Bethune, a black woman who decided at a young age that she would learn how to read. Her mission became teaching other black children and adults how to read. Afterward, we had a discussion about race and education in the U.S. Half of the class knew that not too long ago, your skin color determined whether or not you would learn how to read. The other half had no idea. We talked about the "white kids in the suburbs" (according to one of my students) and how they get to go to Ivy League schools. I asked why my students couldn't go there, and no one had an answer for me. "Exactly," I said. "If you work hard and want to go to Harvard or Yale, you can go, too."

At the end of class, I had them respond to another prompt: "What did you learn today?" Sharita wrote, "Today I learned that I can do anything I want to do, no matter how much money I have." (Mary McLeod Bethune started her school with $1.50 in her pocket.) My favorite response came from Jaquan (whose name has also been changed): "Today I learned that Mary McLeod Bethune started a school for blacks, and that reading can change the world."

I hope I am effective enough as a teacher to give them the power that is reading. I can't wait to see them change the world.

On Reemerging and Settling

So there's internet here again.
There are few words for how exciting this development is for both of us.
Finally, we're starting to feel settled.
There's a before and after album of our house in the works... it'll be posted here when it's done.
Still a lot of irons in the fire... but it's getting better all the time.
Here's a couple stories of note:

Zuul's brother?
So I saw something out the window the other day that about made my heart stop.
Same size. Same color. Same striping.
Zuul's long lost brother?
Maybe.

I made this: desk!

So I wasn't satisfied with any of the desk options I'd found.
And so one day I got inspired and designed a desk.
This is it!
I like it a lot.
It could use a little more work, but for the tools I had available and the talent and space I had, I think I did a pretty good job.